Miserabilia
by phollie
Summary: And when Mello thinks about it, maybe he really did do all of this to himself. / Mihael Keehl in four snapshots - in fire and fury, and then in silence. Mello/Matt.


****It always feels good to write Death Note, even when it hurts like a bitch like this.

Lyrics are, in order, "New Drink for the Old Drunk" by We Are Augustines, "Juarez" by the same band, "Futile Devices" by Sufjan Stevens, and "My Sundown" by Jimmy Eat World.

* * *

**.miserabilia**

/

_when you came you were new_

_but today you're much older_

/

At thirteen, Mello learns that if you cut longways on the inside of your arm, your blood runs faster, to the point where you even feel a bit dizzy and like you're seated on a carousel spinning round and round, unstopping, untiring. He figures the best place to do this sort of thing is in the library, since there are lots of windows that let in tons of light and maybe, just maybe someone will find him and see the bloody mess of his arm and be _scared_. It doesn't hurt, not really, because the thrill of it makes up for any of the sting; the anticipation of being caught and reprimanded and bandaged up by a shaky-handed Roger always, _always_ makes up for it.

But today, the person that finds him is Near. Mello can tell just by the sound of his padding footsteps before they even carry the little ghostboy over to where he sits on the floor just beneath the window, dripping blood onto the floor as if trying to paint a pretty picture into the glossy hardwood. Near's socks are as white as the rest of him, save for his eyes, which bore down black and blank as if to ask a question without a question mark pinned to the end of it. His tiny mouth is pursed slightly, but he still looks detached as ever, which Mello expects and duly loathes. He looks up at him with his best impression of monster eyes, and he bets he looks a real mess now, head spinning and arm streaming and vision blurring out of focus. "What?" he's spitting out, laughing. "What, you gonna tell someone? Gonna run off and get help?"

Near just stares down at him, blinking slowly in the middle of twirling a lock of silvery hair around his finger. The sunlight washes him near see-through, as if he doesn't fully exist at all.

"I could die from this, you know," Mello breathes out on a bitter laugh. "Could bleed out right here on the floor, wouldn't you like that?"

Near blinks again, and all he says is, "No."

Within twenty minutes, Mello is bandaged up and receiving a very stern lecture from Roger, who looks older and more frail with every passing day, and all Mello can think about is how he wishes Near had said yes.

He refuses to let this hate be onesided. He refuses to be the only one.

/

_so now i got hell on my trail_

_it took some demons to get even_

_now my demon's counting rosaries_

/

At eighteen, Mello learns that sleeping with a pistol under your pillow is the best way to stay alive in the dark. These men won't hurt him, probably not, since he's the one calling out the orders and bringing this whole thing to fruition, but the pistol remains loaded, and the knife remains gripped in his hand, and sleep never comes.

In the shadows, the water stains on the ceiling look like blood, as if someone had their head twisted off and their neck sang up to the plaster in a violent choir of red. This warehouse smells like shit. Everything smells like shit. That shouldn't bother Mello so much, because he's here to defeat Near and to crush Kira and to avenge L, not to smell like fucking roses. He's here to _prove_ himself, not to be some pretty little prince decked out in silk and jewels, but that doesn't stop his nose from scrunching up every time he passes by one of the men that reek of piss and booze and sweat, every smell climbing on top of one another and emanating as a rancid sick that makes Mello's nose burn and his stomach turn over on itself.

You'd think he'd be used to this by now, but he doesn't think he ever could be. Shit, how could anyone? You don't have to be a pretty prince smelling like lilies and sunlight to know that you couldn't ever belong in a brick shithouse, no matter how your heart tries so hard to be something ugly and tarnished and torn like some leather jacket held together with safety pins. And it is, to an extent, since sometimes his heart feels like it might claw out of his chest and start a war of its own, jumping from wall to wall and screaming in the tone of television static, but who the fuck would get that in a place like this? Maybe these men, these dirty guys in this dirty business, maybe they do belong here, and maybe Mello will turn into a man just like them, if he lives long enough.

Nah. He knows that won't happen. Mello's never been like anyone else. Blond, blue-eyed Mello with the red beads hanging round his neck like some noose that will save him, he could never be like those men. He couldn't be like any of the robotic kids back at Wammy's, the ones that played with blocks and solved puzzles with their eyebrows creased and their mouth turned up in this little thoughtful scowl; he couldn't be like Near, god dammit, and now he can't even be ugly and hateful enough to get used to the piss-and-shit smell of this place that makes him feel like throwing up.

He really is just a kid. And he feels every last consequence of that as he grips the blade harder in his hand, palm bleeding, waiting for morning.

/

_and i would say i love you_

_but saying it out loud is hard_

_so i won't say it at all_

_and i won't stay very long_

/

At twenty, Mello learns that he loves Matt a little too much, and that they're both a righteous pair of fucking idiots.

Matt plays the radio when he makes breakfast at midnight. He's a terrible cook, barely able to make a damn omelet without nearly burning their apartment down, but he's earnest, and Mello likes that. Matt was never earnest in the ways a Wammy kid needed to be – he never did the work, never read the books, never gave the shits, yet he made an easy ascent to just under Mello in the rankings without even noticing, without even caring. Sometimes Mello gets this strange feeling that Matt might actually be a bit brighter than _him_, at least in some ways, and that should piss him off, but it doesn't. Because it's Matt. And that's all the explanation that Mello has ever needed.

"Aw, fuck," Matt grumbles from the kitchen, scraping burnt egg from the skillet as he makes his second attempt to flip the omelet over. He's shirtless and skinny, wearing nothing but low-slung jeans and fingerless gloves, his goggles hanging around his neck. The top of his boxers hang out above the waist of his jeans, blue and white plaid with dinosaurs. "Oh, hey, how's your face feeling?"

Oh, that's right. Mello went and burned off half his face like a dumbass, and he's been confined to the living room futon for the past two weeks, eating Matt's shitty cooking and trying not to turn into a wild animal. The open window helps, and so does the radio, and so does Matt's annoyed mumbling when smoke flares up from the skillet and he has to turn off the heat with a quick turn of his wrist. Resting the unmarred side of his chin on his fist, Mello sighs and shrugs - bad idea, given that his shoulder is still pretty raw, but he'll get by. "Bit numb," he says, his voice cutting out hoarse from disuse.

"Guess that's better than it hurting, though, huh?" Matt flips the ruined omelet onto a plate and grabs a plastic fork out of the box on the counter. "Or leaking out pus like it was a few days ago. God, that was gross."

"Don't remind me." Mello watches Matt's shoulder blades shift beneath his pale skin as he sticks the skillet with burnt, blackened pieces of egg stuck to the Teflon into the sink. He runs the water atop it for a few seconds before switching it off, and Mello gets this sudden thought that Matt sort of moves like a smoke cloud, his every motion detached, willowy, indirect. Mello would say that it's almost like the guy isn't really there, but that isn't true, not at all – if Matt weren't here, Mello would be dead, his body decaying under a pile of rubble and shattered cement and all the broken pieces of the brick shithouse that he blew up for the sake of his pride.

Matt ambles out into the living room and hands Mello the plate, an apologetic, goofy smile tugging at one corner of his mouth. "I'm, uh, still getting the hang of the whole egg thing, can't you tell?"

For the first time in weeks, months, maybe even years, Mello puffs out a little laugh through his nose, poking the brown egg with the plastic fork. "Wow, Matt."

"Hey, I tried. You gotta eat." Matt lopes around to the other side of the couch to take a seat, kicking up his legs onto the coffee table, one long arm stretching along the back of the cushion. He lazily rolls his head to the side and looks at Mello. "It's not so bad, you know," he says, "this sorta quiet. It's almost nice." He reaches over and brushes a lock of Mello's hair out of his eyes, just a silly little gesture that may very well mean nothing, but Mello stiffens and looks sideways at him, nerves twisting at the closeness. "Least I don't have to worry about you sneaking out in the middle of the night and getting torn up like that again."

"I can still walk," Mello says for no reason. No reason but pride. "Can still run, still sneak out, all those things."

Matt blinks at him, his bangs flopping over his eyes. His lips are slightly parted, and if Mello were a normal person, he'd lean forward and kiss him or something, because Matt always looks like someone waiting to be kissed, with his sleepy eyes and stupid smile and lanky limbs that flop over the furniture like strips of cable wire.

"Well, yeah," Matt mumbles, looking away, "but would you?"

It sort of pisses Mello off that he can't bring himself to answer that, but Matt already knows his answer.

They spend the night on the couch, with Matt cussing at pixelated civilians and cops and prostitutes as he plays Grand Theft Auto, and with Mello watching his profile, watching the cigarette dangling out the corner of his mouth and imagining himself burning away inside of it, sucked into Matt's mouth, poisoning him from the inside out.

That's pretty much what he's doing already.

/

_i've said my goodbyes_

_this is my sundown_

_i'm gonna be so much more than this_

/

At the end, Mello learns that Takada looks like a little girl when she's scared, scared of _him_, and he couldn't hurt this woman even if he wanted to. It's a curse, he thinks. It's a calling.

Matt's dead because of him, and soon, Mello will be in the same place, or maybe in some hell of his own, since Matt was never as much of a monster as he is. If there's a heaven, Matt deserves one. He had a smile that could have stopped the world. He had potential. And now Mello has reduced him to a nameless anomaly read in monotone from a news station, his death read off by some person that didn't even fucking know him.

In the distance, there's a church. Mello will drive into it, either before or after Takada kills him. And she will.

He gives her a blanket, and she gives him a heart attack. She gives him a few spitfire seconds of crushing pain and a hot memory reel of all the times he fucked up, all the times he hurt and bled and loved – and Mello realizes, in that last second, that maybe he did this all to himself, and maybe that's fair enough. Maybe Matt would agree, and maybe he wouldn't.

But god be damned if he won't make it all worth it.


End file.
